The Long Game (Part III)

In Parts I and II of this series, I laid out some of the principles and practices that have helped me successfully referee several long-running RPG campaigns. In my experience, flexibility, treating the game world as a living place, and investing in player choices all pay huge dividends. I also touched on my weekly routine: very light prep, frequent reuse of old material, tracking what matters, and finding ways to maintain player engagement between sessions. All of this is system-agnostic and, to some extent, it can be applied to any roleplaying game with the right mindset. However, I’ve found that certain games make this style of play easier. They either assume it from the start or provide rules and mechanics that reinforce the kind of open-ended, collaborative worldbuilding that long campaigns thrive on.

So, to conclude this part of the series – there are a few more related posts coming next week – I want to recommend a handful of RPGs I’ve played that I think are particularly well-suited to supporting enduring, player-driven campaigns.

Dungeons & Dragons

The TSR editions of Dungeons & Dragons, especially AD&D, are built on assumptions that naturally support long-term campaign play. They treat the referee as the final authority, assume player freedom of action, and offer no built-in plot or “story.” Advancement after the first few levels is slow, exploration is richly rewarded, and the game world exists beyond the player characters. These games provide excellent frameworks for the kind of emergent, faction-rich, consequence-driven campaigns that I’ve found work well over the long haul. Though I haven’t played AD&D in years, I still think it has just the right mix of elements to encourage sustained, imaginative play, especially if the referee is comfortable using his own judgment.

D&D Derivatives

While it probably goes without saying, I nevertheless want to be explicit: most RPGs that share a lot of rules or mechanical DNA with early Dungeons & Dragons are likely well-suited to long campaigns. I’m talking about games like Gamma World or Empire of the Petal Throne (obviously), as well as the many retro-clones of D&D. Particularly worth mentioning are Kevin Crawford’s Stars Without Number and related games. These not only preserve the simplicity of older systems but also explicitly support long-form sandbox play with tools for faction management, procedural content, and worldbuilding. In fact, I’d say many of the principles and practices I discussed in the earlier parts of this series really crystallized for me after I first read Stars Without Number all those years ago.

Traveller

The default playstyle of Traveller revolves around sandbox exploration, commerce, patronage, and factional intrigue, all of which are ideal ingredients for long-term campaigns. The original 1977 rules support the growth and development of an enduring campaign through a robust set of procedural tools: world and sector generation, reaction rolls, random encounters, and more. Traveller encourages players to make their own way in the universe, taking risks, building reputations, and developing relationships with factions and NPCs. Since I’ve been playing and thinking about Traveller for decades, I don’t think there’s any doubt it’s had an outsized influence on how I referee RPGs in general. Its assumptions and tools are deeply compatible with the kind of campaign play I find most rewarding.

Pendragon

For something more structured but still open-ended, Pendragon absolutely deserves mention. It’s built around generational play, where sessions span years of in-game time and characters age, retire, or die –only to be replaced by their sons. It assumes from the outset that the campaign will unfold over decades, filled with consequences and a world in motion. Unlike D&D, Pendragon places strong emphasis on character development in moral and psychological terms, not just skills and abilities. Players must contend with passions, virtues, family legacy, and political entanglements. For referees willing to embrace its tone and rhythms, it’s uniquely rewarding, which is why I consider it one of the best roleplaying games ever written.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. The games above are simply those I’ve used successfully in multi-year campaigns, but I’m sure many others could work just as well, especially if the referee and players commit to a shared style of play. In the end, I’d probably argue the “best” system for a long campaign is the one your group enjoys returning to week after week. If your players care about the world and the game gives you the tools to keep that world alive and responsive, then you’ve already got the makings of something lasting.

Polyhedron: Issue #27

Issue #27 of Polyhedron (January 1986) features yet another cover by Roger Raupp, this time depicting a clan of dwarves. Raupp was a very prominent artist in the pages of both Polyhedron and Dragon during the second half of the 1980s – so prominent that, for me at least, his illustrations strongly define the look of that era. I also remember Raupp's work on many of the later Avalon Hill RuneQuest books, which, as I understand it, are very well regarded among Glorantha fans. 

Leaving aside the forgettable "Notes from HQ," the issue properly kicks off with "Dominion" by Jon Pickens, which introduces a new type of spell for use by AD&D magic-users. Unlike previous collections of new spells by Pickens, this one looks not to magic items for inspiration but rather psionics. All of the dominion spells concern "controlling the victim's voluntary muscles and sensory linkages." This is not mind control but rather bodily control of another being (with the senses being considered part of the body). It's an interesting approach and ultimately, I think, a better one than AD&D's psionics system, which, in addition to being mechanically dubious, didn't really mesh with the overall feel of the game.

"The Thorinson Clan" by Skip Olsen presents five dwarves, related by blood and marriage, from his Norse mythology-inspired AD&D campaign. These are the characters Roger Raupp portrayed on the cover. They're an interesting bunch and I must confess I appreciate the fact that Olsen's campaign is multi-generational, a style of play I think is under-appreciated (and one of the reasons I think so highly of Pendragon). Almost certainly coincidentally, this issue's installment of Errol Farstad's "The Critical Hit" offers a very positive review of Pendragon, which he calls "the stuff of which legends are made." Needless to say, I agree with his assessment.

Next up is "She-Rampage" by Susan Lawson and Tom Robertson, a scenario for use with Marvel Super Heroes. As you might guess based on its title, the scenario involved She-Hulk but also a number of other female Marvel characters, like Valkyrie, Spider-Woman, Thundra, and Tigra. There's also an original character, Lucky Penny, who's based on the Polyhedron's editor, Penny Petticord. The background to the adventure is rather convoluted and involves alternate Earths where one sex dominates the others. The male-dominated Earth, Machus, has learned of the existence of our Earth and sees the existence of super-powered women as a potential threat to be eliminated. This they attempt to do by traveling to our world and then – I am not making this up – releasing doctored photos and scurrilous stories in the pages of "a girlie magazine known as Pander." Naturally, the superheroines take exception to this and it's clobberin' time. I have no words.

Michael Przytarski's "Fletcher's Corner" looks at "problem players." More specifically, he's interested in two different types of players who can cause problems for the referee. The first is the "Sierra Club Player," who's memorized all the rulebooks and uses his knowledge to overcome every obstacle the referee sets before him. The second is the "Multi-Class Player," whose experience is so wide that he tells other players the best way to play their class. In each case, Pryztarski offers some advice on how best to handle these players. Like most articles of this sort, it's hard to judge how good his advice would have been at the time, because most of what he says is now commonsense and has been for a long time. 

"Alignment Theory" by Robert B. DesJardins is yet another attempt to make sense of AD&D's alignment. Like all such attempts, it's fine to the extent that you're willing to accept its premises. DesJardins argues that "law versus chaos" is a question of politics, while "good versus evil" is a question of heart (or morality). He makes this distinction in order to fight against the supposed notion that some players believe Lawful Good is more good than Chaotic Good – in short equating "law" with "good" and "chaos" with "evil." Was this a common belief then or now? I suppose it's possible players who entered the hobby through Dungeons & Dragons might have carried with them echoes of its threefold alignment system, but, even so, how common was it? I guess I long ago tired of alignment discussion, so it's difficult for me to care much about articles like this.

This month, "Dispel Confusion" focuses solely on rules and other questions about Star Frontiers, which surprised me. Meanwhile, "Gamma Mars: The Attack" by James M. Ward offers up a dozen new mutants to be used in conjunction with the "Gamma Mars" article from last issue. Most of these mutants are mutated Earth insects, but one represents the original Martian race, whose members have been lying beneath the planet's surface in wait for the right moment to strike against human colonists to the Red Planet. I find it notable that Ward was long interested in introducing extra-terrestrial beings into his post-apocalyptic settings, whether Gamma World or Metamorphosis Alpha. I wonder why it was an idea to which he returned so often?

As you can probably tell by this post, my enthusiasm for re-reading Polyhedron is waning. I'm very close to the end of the issues I owned in my youth, so I may simply be anticipating the conclusion of this series. On the other hand, I also think there's a certain tiredness to the newszine itself. The content has never been as uniformly good as that of Dragon and it's become even more variable as it has depended more and more on submissions by RPGA members, few of which are as polished or imaginative as those to be found elsewhere. The end result is a 'zine that's sometimes a bit of a chore to read, never mind comment about intelligently. 

Ah well. I'll soldier on.

Retrospective: Prince Valiant: The Story Telling Game

When I was kid, I always looked forward to the Sunday edition of the local newspaper, because it had this enormous color comics section. Truly, there were dozens upon dozens of these strips – everything from Peanuts to Garfield to Hagar the Horrible and more. Also present were a number of "old" comics, like Mark Trail, Apartment 3-G, and Mary Worth, whose continued presence baffled me. Who read these comics? Certainly not I, nor any of my childhood friends. 

However, there was one "old" comic that I often did read: Prince Valiant. I did so partly because of the comic's subject matter, Prince Valiant was set, as its subtitle proclaimed, "in the days of King Arthur" and I had long been a devoted fan of Arthurian legendry. Furthermore, Prince Valiant was beautifully drawn and had a very – to me – strange presentation. There were no speech balloons or visual onomatopoeia, just lots of text arranged like storybook. 

I was never a consistent reader of Prince Valiant, but, when I did take the time to do so, I almost always enjoyed it. There was a sincerity to the comic that I appreciated as a youngster, as well as an infectious love of heroism and romance (in all senses of the term). I wouldn't say that Prince Valiant played a huge role in my subsequent fondness for tales of fantastic adventure, but there's no doubt that it played some role, hence why I took an interest in Greg Stafford's 1989 roleplaying game adaptation when it was released.

Stafford is probably best known as the man behind Glorantha, the setting of RuneQuest. For me, though, Pendragon will always be his magnum opus – and one of the few RPGs I consider "perfect." Consequently, when I eventually learned of the existence of this game, I was intensely interested. How would it differ from Pendragon? What specifically did it bring to the table that justified its existence as a separate game rather than, say, a supplement to Pendragon? These are questions whose answers I wouldn't learn for quite some time. 1989 was something of a tumultuous year for me; I was busy with other things, and it'd only be sometime in the mid-1990s that I would finally lay eyes upon Prince Valiant.

The most obvious way that Prince Valiant differs from Pendragon is revealed in its subtitle: "The Story-Telling Game." Now, some might immediately think that, in this instance, "storytelling" is simply a synonym for "roleplaying" and you'd be (mostly) right – sorta. The important thing to bear in mind is that Prince Valiant is intended as an introductory game for newcomers to this hobby of ours. Consequently, Stafford tries to use common sense words and concepts that aren't rooted in pre-1974 miniatures wargaming culture. Hence, he talks about "storytelling" rather than "roleplaying" and "episodes" rather than "adventures" or "scenarios" and so forth. The result is a game that's written in a simpler, less jargon-laden way than was typical of RPGs at the time (or even today).

At the same time, Stafford's use of the term "storytelling" isn't simply a matter of avoiding cant. Prince Valiant is, compared to most other similar games, intentionally very simple in its rules structure, so that players can focus on the cooperative building of a compelling narrative set in Hal Foster's Arthurian world. Additionally, the game provides the option of allowing even players to take over the story-telling role within an episode, setting a new scene or introducing a new character or challenge. The chief storyteller, which is to say, the referee in traditional RPGs, is encouraged not to ignore these player-inserted story elements but instead to run with them, using them as a way to introduce unexpected twists and turns within the larger unfolding narrative. 

The other clear way that Prince Valiant differs from Pendragon is its rules, which can fit on a single page. This makes them easy to learn and remember, as well as to use. Unlike more traditional RPGs with their assortment of funny-shaped dice, Stafford opted in Prince Valiant to use only coins. For any action where the result is not foregone, a number of coins are flipped, with heads representing successes. The more heads flipped, the better the success. In cases where a character competes against another character, such as combat, successes are compared, with the character achieving the most successes emerging victorious – simplicity itself! 

Last but certainly not least, Prince Valiant differs from Pendragon because of the pages upon pages of beautiful artwork derived from the comic. Not only does this give the game its own distinctive look, it also highlights its adventuresome, Saturday matinee serial tone in contrast to the heavier, occasionally darker tone of Pendragon and the myth cycles on which it drew. That's not to say Prince Valiant is unserious or "for kids," only that it's a fair bit "lighter" than its "big brother" and thus probably more suitable for younger and/or less experienced players. In that respect, it makes an excellent first RPG.

It's worth noting, too, that the bulk of Prince Valiant's 128-page rulebook is made up not of game mechanics but of advice and tools for players and storytellers alike. Stafford quite obviously distilled the lessons he learned from his many years of playing and refereeing roleplaying games, presenting them in a conversational, easy-to-understand way. Indeed, I've met many people over the years who've claimed that Prince Valiant's true value is not so much as a game in its own right, despite their affection for it, but as an introduction to roleplaying. True though this is, it's also undeniably an excellent game that I'd love to play some day.

That's right: I have never played Prince Valiant and am not sure I ever will. The copy I read years ago was owned by someone else and I've never found a used copy at a reasonable price. I recall that there was an updated or revised version published a few years ago. It doesn't appear to be available through the Chaosium website, alas. Mind you, I certainly don't lack for good RPGs to play; it'd just be great to give this classic one a whirl one day.

White Dwarf: Issue #78

I've got to be honest: reading White Dwarf for these posts is not as much fun as it used to be. Partly, I think I'm simply tired of the magazine, which I've been reviewing for almost two years now. At the same time, I'm finding the individual issues are much more miss than hit, in no small part due to the shift in content toward games that don't interest me very much. That's not necessarily a comment on White Dwarf itself. However, the end is nigh for this series. I'll try to tough it out till issue #80, so I can end it on a nice round number. Any more than that is beyond my patience.

Issue #78 (April 1986) features a cover by Chris Achilleos and a new editor, Paul Cockburn. Prior to coming to White Dwarf, Cockburn was an editor and writer at TSR UK's Imagine, which ceased publication in October 1985, with its thirtieth issue. In his editorial, Ian Livingstone, states that "it looks like everything is changing around here except the name" and he's not mistaken. The whole look of WD is different with this issue – the graphic design is more "professional" and there's a lot more color, for instance. Whether that's good or bad is a matter of taste, I suppose. I can only say that, for me, these "improvements" are a vivid signal that the times, they are a-changin' and I hate change.

With this issue, "Open Box" abandons numerical ratings for its reviews, which I applaud. As commenters have repeatedly pointed out to me, those ratings were not made by the reviewers themselves but by someone on the magazine's editorial team, hence their frequent inconsistencies with the actual text of the reviews. The first product examined is Night's Dark Terror, which the reviewer liked as much as I. Cthulhu by Gaslight is also reviewed positively, though somewhat less enthusiastically. The Nobles Book for Pendragon receives an even more muted thumbs up, while Dragons of Glory is recommended only for "the Dragonlance fanatic," which, I think, is quite fair. 

Paul Mason's "Cosmic Encounter" is not, strictly speaking, a review of the classic science fiction boardgame. Instead, it's an overview of the game's rules and play, no doubt with an eye toward enticing readers to purchase Games Workshop's new edition of the game. Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" is, oddly, more readable now than in previous issues. Whether that's due to a better layout or the fact that Langford – in this issue anyway – reviews fewer books, I can't rightly say. It's a pity that, with one exception, none of his reviews stuck with me. The one that did, for Gary Gygax's Artifact of Evil, which Langford criticizes for its "brutalities visited upon the English language" and for being little more than "an AD&D campaign write-up." I wish I could disagree.

"Solar Power" by Gary Holland is an occasionally amusing bit of original fiction about Norbert Parkinson, a man whose maladaptive development leads to a psychosis in which "he lives in a world occupied by elves, goblins, dragons, evil wizards and diverse other fantasy figures ..." It's fun enough for what it is, I suppose. Meanwhile, Graeme Drysdale's "Ashes to Ashes" is supposed to be "a closer look at resurrection in AD&D." In fact, it's a fairly cursory examination of all the magical spells by which a character can be returned to life in AD&D (reincarnation, raise dead, and resurrection) along with some comments and advice about their advantages and drawbacks. Again, fine for what it is, but nothing special.

Peter Tamlyn's "The Pilcomayo Project" is an adventure for Golden Heroes. The scenario is long – 7 pages – and takes place in Bolivia, where a Neo-Nazi supervillain and his robot stormtroopers are attempting to locate the legendary city of El Dorado. It's four-color nonsense, of course, but probably enjoyable in play. I find it notable, though, that, unlike previous superhero scenarios in White Dwarf, this one is not dual statted for Champions, only Games Workshop's own Golden Heroes – a sign of the times, no doubt! 

"The Spunng Ones!" by Marcus Rowland is an adventure for Judge Dredd the Role-Playing Game. This is another long one (8 pages) but it's absurd in a way that only a Judge Dredd story can be. A gang of criminals have given an experimental food additive called "Spunng" to a group of "fatties." Spunng converts their fat deposits into rubbery flesh that is also bullet proof. The fatties the engage in a crime spree the player Judges must stop. As I said, absurd, but that's Judge Dredd for you. "'Eavy Metal" takes a look at Judge Dredd miniatures and includes photos of a Sector 306 diorama built for Games Day '85. As always, it's a pleasure to see the amazing work others put into their miniatures.

This issue includes a full-page "Gobbledigook" comic, along with a re-telling of The Lord of the Rings had "Thrud the Barbarian" been involved. Hint: it doesn't go well for the Dark Lord. Sadly, the issue also marks the end of "The Travellers" comic, which had long been a favorite of mine. If I didn't already have other reasons for wanting to give up on this series, the departure of "The Travellers" might be sufficient.

Two more to go, two more to go. I just need to keep telling myself that ...

White Dwarf: Issue #74

Issue #74 of White Dwarf (February 1986) sports a cover by American conic book artist, Frank Brunner, who's probably best known for his work on Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella, as well as his covers for Marvel's Savage Sword of Conan and Red Sonja. The issue also marks the point where Ian Livingstone hands over day-to-day editorial duties to Ian Marsh. Livingstone states that he is not "deserting the magazine" and will still "be keeping a benevolent eye on the progress of [his] eight-year-old love-child" in his new capacity as Editor-in-Chief. Despite his reassurances, this nevertheless feels like a turning point in the history of White Dwarf.

Case in point: the issue kicks off with "Superpower" by Bruce Hollands, which is an extensive look at the Games Workshop-published boardgame of the same name. Like the look at Warrior Knights from the previous issue, this article, while informative, nevertheless feels more like an extended advertisement for a GW product than a "real" article. That may be an unfair judgment on my part, but reading it convinced me that the oft-discussed transformation of White Dwarf into a full-on house organ of Games Workshop was not far in the future.

Countering that worry is "Open Box," which only reviewed one GW product this issue, the Call of Cthulhu scenario Night in Norway, which scores 7 out of 10. Also reviewed is Dragon Warriors and two of its supplements (The Way of Wizardry and The Elven Crystals), which collectively earn 9 out of 10. After all these years, I've still never read Dragon Warriors, which people whose opinions I respect tell me is well worth a look. The historical RuneQuest supplement Vikings gets 8 out of 10, while Oriental Adventures for AD&D receives 9 out of 10. The Pendragon Campaign, the predecessor to the well regarded The Boy King, is similarly well regarded, earning 9 out of 10. The column wraps up with a look at two different scenarios for use with FASA's Star Trek, The Outcasts and Termination 1456, both of which are judged perfect (10 out of 10). 

Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" generally vexes me, but this issue's column at least looks at a few books I know and have read, like Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series. Langford quite correctly recognizes the value of these books and of Vance more generally

The good stuff lies in Tschai's rich scents and colours, and in elaboration of style. No Vance villain would say 'I'll get you for that.' Instead: 'Low-grade assassins will drown you in cattle excrement! Twenty pariahs will drub your corpse! A cur will drag your head along the street by your tongue!'

Langford's byline reappears under "The Power of the Frog," a science fiction short story about a human junior military officer held prisoner by an alien race. Like all of Langford's previous short stories, this one is both brief and amusing. It's clear the man has talent, which is why I sometimes feel bad at the lack of interest his book review column elicits. Truthfully, I wish he had contributed more fiction to White Dwarf. 

"Terror at Trollmarsh" is an AD&D adventure for 4th–5th-level characters by Peter and Janet Vialls. I really enjoyed this one, which takes the form of a murder mystery with fantasy/horror elements. A monster is stalking the halls of Baron Uther Torgrim, killing his servants, and it's up to the players to figure out just what is really going on. While the overall concept is a standard, even clichéd one, the authors handle it well, giving the referee an interesting, well mapped out environment, an array of compelling NPCs, and a culprit with clear, understandable motives. "Terror at Trollmarsh" is nothing revolutionary, but, like all good scenarios, it gives players lots of "moving parts" with which to interact as they grapple with its central mystery.

"A Company of Wolves" by Peter Blanchard looks at lycanthropy in AD&D from both a game and folkloric perspective. The article doesn't offer much in the way of new rules mechanics, which I appreciate, focusing instead on "social" aspects of this magical curse, which is to say, how it might function in a fantasy setting, including its advantages and drawbacks. "The Hide of the Ancestor" by Chris Watson is a short RuneQuest scenario about the recovery of a relic holy to the twenty-six tribes of the Ithillian-Fane, a race of lion-centaurs. I find it oddly refreshing to read a RQ adventure set in Glorantha whose author feels comfortable enough with the setting to his own creations, like the Ithillian-Fane to it. Too often settings like Glorantha – and Tékumel and Hârn and ... – are treated as inviolable to the point that no one is even willing to play in them, lest they "do it wrong." That's nonsense in my opinion, which is why I delight in scenarios like "The Hide of the Ancestor."

"Gentlemen and Players" by Richard Edwards and Chris Elliott is nice little article about creating British characters for use with Call of Cthulhu. As its title suggests, the article focuses on the creation of "gentlemen" (or aristocratic amateurs) and "players" (professional sportsmen). "Hitting the Right Note" by Ian Berridge presents information on musical instruments, their use, and the how to learn to play them for use with AD&D. Articles like this are godsends to those whose campaigns would benefit from such fine details – and absolutely useless to those whose campaigns wouldn't. 

"Alternative Origins" by Ian Thomson is a collection of random tables for use with Games Workshop's Golden Heroes. The tables are intended to replace those presented in the game for character generation in order to produce more "convincing" heroes whose powers are an incompatible jumble. This makes good sense to me, but then I haven't looked at a copy of Golden Heroes in decades, so it's hard for me to judge how useful this article would be. Elsewhere, Joe Dever offers part three of his look at "Dioramas," accompanied by some lovely – though non-diorama – photographs of painted miniatures.

The issue also includes more "Thrud the Barbarian," a full-page "Gobbledigook," and "The Travellers," which continues its Shadows-inspired plotline. I particularly enjoyed the latter, especially this bit:

Of course, I've always been fond of the way that "The Travellers" blends Traveller-specific humor with more general lampoonery of roleplaying games, so I may be biased. In any case, it's nice to see that one of my favorite comics remains as amusing ever, even if White Dwarf as a whole looks to be on the verge of some monumental – and not entirely pleasing – changes.

White Dwarf: Issue #72

Issue #72 of White Dwarf (December 1985) features a cover by Lee Gibbons that's striking not just for its style but also its subject matter. Over the course of its run, the subject of most of WD's covers has been fantasy or science fiction, while this one clearly depicts a horror scene, perhaps even one from the Call of Cthulhu game. In any case, I like this cover quite a bit. It's a reminder to me of all the excellent CoC content that appeared in the pages of White Dwarf over the years and kept me reading it for so long.

"Open Box" kicks off with a review of FASA's Doctor Who Role Playing Game, which the reviewer likes a great deal (8 out of 10). Even more favorably reviewed is Chaosium's Pendragon (9 out of 10) and I find it difficult to argue with such an assessment. The final review is the Pacesetter boardgame, Wabbit Wampage (6 out of 10). I had completely forgotten about the existence of this game, but I now recall seeing many advertisements in Dragon for it (and the Chill-related game, Black Morn Manor) during the mid-1980s. I never played either them, though, from the review, it doesn't seem like I missed much.

I'm going to let Dave Langford's "Critical Mass" pass without comment, because, as is so often the case, none of the books he discusses are ones I've read or about which I have anything to say, good or bad. Far more interesting is Alastair Morrison's "The Jewel in the Crown," which is both an overview of Talisman and an expansion of it. Morrison provides several new spell and adventure cards for use with the game, in addition to a new character – the Samurai. All are given new color cards, complete with (I think) John Blanche illustrations that the reader can either cut out or photocopy from the issue. I've long been a big fan of these kinds of articles. I remember a similar one for Dungeon! that appeared in the first volume of The Best of Dragon of whose rules addition I made use. 

"Fear of Flying" by Marcus L. Rowland – there he is again – is a short Call of Cthulhu scenario that takes place aboard a Tarrant Tabor triplane that can carry twelve passengers at a speed of over 100 miles per hour! Naturally, the presence of a carving of Nyarlathotep on board leads to all sorts of Mythos mayhem as the plane makes it way through the air. What makes the scenario memorable is not so much its Lovecraftian elements as its setting, the remarkable aircraft on which the characters are traveling. In my opinion, it's a good use of the 1920s setting, because it highlights the ways that the world of a century ago was both very much like and very much unlike our own. To my mind, that's the best use of any historical seting and one of which I wish we saw more in RPG adventures.

"Scientific Method" by Phil Masters is a brief but interesting look at super-scientists within a superhero setting. What makes the article useful is that Masters looks at both sides of the equation – super-scientist heroes (and sidekicks) as well as villains. Graeme Drysdale's "The Necklace of Brisingamen" is an AD&D scenario for characters of levels 7–10. As its title suggests, it's inspired by Norse mythology, specifically the necklace of the goddess Freya. The adventure concerns a long ago conflict between Freya, Loki, and their followers and how that conflict continues to color contemporary events in and around the village of Stonehelm. This is a lengthy and compelling scenario, one that provides the referee with a lot of material to use, as well as plenty of challenges for the player characters.

"Origin of the PCs" by Peter Tamlyn looks at the virtues and flaws of character generation systems. The article rambles about a number of related topics before coming to the "conclusion" that "character generation is a complex and wide-ranging activity and that different methods will appear best depending on who is using the system, how much time and effort they want and/or need to put into getting results, and what sort of character is to be created." What insight! Much more fun is "Sleigh Wars" by Chris Elliott and Richard Edwards, a 2–4 player boardgame of "merry Xmas mayhem" in which four "Santas" – Santa Claus himself, Anti-Claus, General Nicholas B. Claus III Jr., and The Ongoing Spirit of Christmas Where It's At At This Moment in Time – compete with another to deliver all their presents before the others. It's a completely ridiculous game, but it looks like fun.

"Recommended Reading" by Marc Gascoigne offers up a couple of new Mythos tomes for use with Call of Cthulhu. "All Part of Life's Rich Pageant," meanwhile, presents a random events table for use with AD&D. The events include such things as "arrested," "conversion attempt," "friendship," and "witness crime," among many others. Each is described, along with ideas on how to implement them in a game. While I could, of course, quibble with some of the entries or with their particular arrangement, it's difficult to find fault with what is essentially an adventure seed generator to aid the referee. As a proponent of the oracular power of dice, I'm largely in favor of tables like this, though one must still be wary of falling prey to randomness fetishism. It's a fine line to walk and each person will draw it in a different place, which is no knock against the general principle.

"Dioramas" is a new series about gaming miniatures by Joe Dever, the first part of which focuses on planning and preparation. Disappointingly, the color photographs that accompany the article aren't of miniature dioramas at all. I hope that future installments might remedy this, since I admire the hard work that goes into the creation of top-notch miniature scenes. The issue also includes more "Thrud the Barbarian," "Gobbledigook," and "The Travellers," the last of which continues its protagonists' playing out of the classic Traveller scenario, Shadows.

As I have written several times previously, this issue is from the period when I was no longer reading White Dwarf regularly but instead only picked up the occasional issue here and there, as I came across them in hobby or book shops. Consequently, my memories of the period are much hazier and I have a lot less affection for these issues. Indeed, it won't be much longer before I'll be in wholly foreign territory: issues I have never seen, let alone read. Once that happens, I'll re-evaluate whether to continue with this series or move on to a different gaming periodical with which I am more familiar, such as Polyhedron.

My Top 10 Non-D&D RPGs (Part I)

In a comment to a recent post, I was asked to put together a Top 10 list of my favorite non-D&D RPGs. I thought that was a good idea and today's post is the first half of that list. In putting the list together, I spent some time reflecting on which games I both liked and had played extensively over the course of my time in the hobby. Most of the results were obvious, but a handful surprised me. For this two-part post, I've kept the entries brief. However, I may return to several of them in separate posts where I talk at greater length about my experiences with these games and why I would rank them among my favorites.

Part II will appear tomorrow.

10. Gangbusters

I've always liked the idea of historical RPGs, but, in practice, they're often difficult to pull off. One of their biggest obstacles in my opinion is that players – and referees too – are often at a loss deciding precisely what to do in a past setting. That's not the case with TSR's Gangbusters. For one, it takes place during the gang wars of the USA's Prohibition Era, which naturally lends itself to something more akin to the "adventuring" found in purely fictional worlds. For another, the game's compact 64-page rules give plenty of rules and advice on how to run a campaign. Everything from police procedures to investigative journalism to criminal activities gets its due. Gangbusters is the only historical RPG I've ever played successfully for any length of time and I regularly consider trying to do so again. It's a terrific, underappreciated gem of the first decade of the hobby.

9. Fading Suns

Science fiction has always been my jam, so I don't think anyone will be surprised to see a large number of SF RPGs on this list. That said, Fading Suns is science fiction in the same way that one might call Star Wars science fiction, which is to say, it involves blasters and starships but is otherwise more of a space fantasy. That's not a criticism of Fading Suns, which makes excellent use of a number of thematic and setting elements that are right up my alley, like religion, ancient mysteries, weird technology, feudalism, and more. The game's setting has always been its main strength, since it's never had a rules system with which I was wholly comfortable. Even so, I've had a lot of fun with it over the years, having run a couple of enjoyable campaigns in the late '90s and early 2000s. I hope one day to do it again.

8. Pendragon

Pendragon is one of only a handful of RPGs I'd consider "perfect," in the sense that they perfectly marry their mechanics and subject matter. It's for this reason that the game is sometimes considered the late Greg Stafford's masterpiece and I largely agree with that judgment. Stafford managed to achieve with Pendragon something he never quite managed with RuneQuest: the creation of rules that fully immersed the player into the world – and worldview – of the game. That Pendragon's mechanics are quite simple (and mostly straightforward) makes it very easy on both players and the referee to enter a fully realized Arthurian world. I recently had the chance to play Pendragon again over the last couple of years and enjoyed myself greatly. The game remains every bit as good as I remembered its being.

7. Traveller: 2300

Science fiction rears its head again. Traveller: 2300 – later renamed 2300 AD to avoid confusion with its unrelated predecessor – is a game I strongly associate with the last years of high school and the start of my college education. During those years, I was much devoted to it, in large part because I found its setting so compelling. From its interesting (and unexpected) future history to its plausible future technologies to its truly alien aliens, it had everything that I wanted in a SF RPG at the time. Like many other games on this list, Traveller: 2300 suffered a little because of its clunky rules, but it more than made up for it with its compelling vision of a future three centuries hence. I haven't played in this particular SF sandbox in a long time; perhaps I need to change that in the years to come.

6. Twilight: 2000

At the time it was released, just as I was starting high school, Twilight: 2000 seemed like a fairly plausible take on the End of the World, certainly when compared to more fanciful post-apocalyptic games like Gamma World. Strangely, that was a big part of the game's appeal to me. Later, it was the way the game and its supplements emphasized the importance of rebuilding civilization after the destruction of World War III that held my attention, making it one of the more hopeful post-apocalyptic RPGs. Twilight: 2000 is one of only a few games on this last that I am currently playing and, in its current iteration, is now firmly within the realm of alternate history (I hope). We've been having a lot of fun with it and I intend to talk more about my experiences with it in future posts.

The Matter of France

Bulfinch's Mythology was very important to me as a kid. I regularly borrowed it from the library and read it cover to cover more times than I can recall. Though I was very enamored of the first two sections, which retold the myths of ancient Greece and the legends of King Arthur, it's the third part I've found myself thinking about lately. This is where I was first introduced to the tales of Charlemagne and his twelve paladins, names that meant little to me in my early childhood but that would come to mean a great deal more to me once I discovered Dungeons & Dragons.

The reason I've been thinking about it is that, as I mentioned last week, I'm playing in a Pendragon campaign at the moment and am having a great deal of fun. Pendragon, as I never tire of saying, is one of my favorite RPGs, one whose underlying mechanics do a terrific job of encouraging and supporting play that feels very much like what you might read in Sir Thomas Malory. Many others feel similarly, which is why, over the years, people have been borrowing Pendragon's mechanics for use in other mythic or historical settings. 

I think that's a great idea and have kept an eye on several of these projects over the years, but the one that most interested me is Paladin, which aimed to do for the legends of King Charles the Great what Pendragon had done for King Arthur Pendragon. Riding the high of the Pendragon campaign, I finally pulled the trigger and bought a copy of Paladin last week and have been reading it ever since. The physical copy is a truly massive tome over 450 pages in length – and a beautiful one, too. The cover, as you can see, is quite inspiring and the interior art, while sparse, is similarly evocative. I'm not usually a fan of gilt edges for RPG books; in this case, it somehow seems appropriate.

Rules-wise, Paladin is quite similar to Pendragon, with a few changes to reflect its different cultural and historical context. For example, a character's extended family is given much greater emphasis in Paladin. Players are encouraged to make their characters related to one another, in an effort to better emulate the epic medieval poems about Charlemagne and his paladins. Relatedly, characters age faster (and, therefore, die sooner) than do characters in Pendragon, which lends a very different flavor to campaigns. Paladin is also a bit more "magical" than Pendragon, in that divine miracles are within the grasp of player knights, who are loyal to Charlemagne and adhere to the tenets of the Christian faith. Many of their adversaries are wicked sorcerers, who command the powers of Hell. The result is a game that is familiar to anyone who's played Pendragon but by no means identical.

This is a game I'd very much like to try refereeing at some point in the future. Precisely because the Matter of France is not as well known in the English-speaking world as the Matter of Britain, I think Paladin could possess a degree of "freshness" that might be lacking for gamers who've known about Arthur all their lives. This gives it the potential, I think, for being the basis of an excellent campaign, especially when tied to the terrific mechanics of Pendragon. I have no idea when I'll have the time to take up Paladin seriously – I've already got more on my plate than I can handle – but it's nevertheless a rare example of a new RPG that I feel I must play. The only question is when.

Once There Was a Spot

About two weeks ago, I asked readers to comment on roleplaying games they'd never played but wished they had. The responses were quite interesting and I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to comment on the post. Reading through them, one of the RPGs that was among the most commonly mentioned was Chaosium's Pendragon. Seeing the name of Greg Stafford's masterpiece mentioned so often warmed my heart. I'm incredibly fond of the game and am currently a player in a Pendragon campaign that's been running for more than a year now. However, I must admit that I often wonder how well known the game is outside of the circles in which I move. I'm generally of the opinion that Pendragon deserves to be better known, since it's one of a handful of roleplaying games I'd judge to be "perfect."

I'm not being hyperbolic when I call Pendragon perfect. I have a couple of good reasons to think this, reasons that have the benefit of having been repeatedly put to the test in multiple campaigns I've refereed or played in over the decades since the games original release in 1985. The first is straightforward: its rules are simple yet evocative. More than that, they actively encourage players to get into the mindset of Arthurian legendary characters – and do so without the necessity of having to engage in amateur thespianism. The personality traits and passions system really does make it easier for players to get into their characters' heads in a way that leads to play reminiscent of what you read in Malory. 

The second – and more substantial – reason I call Pendragon perfect is its built-in campaign structure. I've been harping on the joys of long campaigns since I returned to this blog almost two years ago. In discussing this matter with others, a common objection is that it's "too hard" to keep a campaign going for years on end, for both creative and logistical reasons. While I don't believe this is true (obviously), I do understand why someone who hadn't successfully been involved in a long campaign might think it was. That's the beauty of Pendragon: the game already does a lot of the heavy lifting for you. The rulebook provides a complete outline of decades of in-game events, from the end of Uther's reign to the fall of the death of Arthur. This is more than enough scaffolding for even a novice referee to build a sprawling, multi-generational campaign that would take, literally, years to complete, especially if you include the additional detail of supplements like The Boy King. 

Pendragon assumes that player knights will undertake only a single significant adventure during the course of a year. The game's use of "adventure" is similar to that used by Malory in Le Morte d'Arthur, meaning a major event or confrontation. When combined with the timeline of Arthur's reign the game outlines, the referee is easily able to set events in motion, with the characters providing additional momentum through their own actions, choices, and alliances. As the knights marry, have children, assume greater responsibilities, and eventually die, there's plenty of scope for all manner of drama and intrigue. After a few game years, a Pendragon campaign practically runs itself, making it an ideal vehicle for referees with little experience of long campaigns.

As I said, I'm currently playing in a Pendragon campaign and having a great deal of fun. My first knight. Sir Adtherp, is nearly 40 years old now, having served first the Earl of Salisbury and then Arthur for close to two decades. He has several sons but none are yet old enough to replace him, so I expect, barring an unexpected turn of events, I'll be playing him for several more game years at least. On the other hand, if events should claim Adtherp's life, he has brothers whom I could play until Adtherp's sons come of age, or else I could create a new character entirely. Things are always happening in the campaign, which is humming along quite nicely, thanks in no small part to the remarkable design of the game itself, which is why I never cease to sing Pendragon's praises.

My Top 9 non-D&D Adventures of All Time

In a comment to My Top 10 D&D Adventures of the Golden Age (Part II), fellow blogger Adam Dickstein asked me to produce a similar list of my favorite non-D&D adventures. I thought that was an excellent idea and so spent the last week thinking about the matter, resulting in the list below, which I hope will be of as much interest as my previous one. This one is a little different than my D&D-centric one in that it's not in any particular order. Given the wide range of roleplaying games for which these adventures were written, ranking them would, on some level, be like comparing apples and oranges. 

As with my earlier list, this one is highly subjective, based almost entirely on my personal experiences with the adventures in question. I make no claims that any of what follows is "the best" in any absolute sense, only that they're personal favorites from more than four decades of roleplaying. In addition, I have deliberately limited myself to the single adventure I consider my favorite for each game system. I could easily have included multiple Traveller or Call of Cthulhu adventures, for example, but felt a broader list would better illustrate my personal tastes. That's also why there are only nine entries on this list rather than ten: I had a tough time coming up with adventures for ten different games that I have actually used and enjoyed, so I settled for nine. 

The Traveller Adventure

The choice of Marc Miller's 1983 The Traveller Adventure is both obvious and something of a cheat. Unlike some of the entries on this list – though not all, as you'll see – this one more of a campaign framework than an single adventure. Despite its title, The Traveller Adventure gives the referee enough material for months of play in GDW's Third Imperium setting. After the kick-off scenario, the players have an immense range of options, as they pilot their merchant vessel among the worlds of the Aramis subsector of the Spinward Marches. Though there's an overarching narrative thread, it's not heavy-handed. That's vital in a game like Traveller, which, as its title suggests, is built on the characters' freedom to travel where they wish among the worlds of its far future setting. While not perfect – what is? – I've gotten untold hours of fun out of The Traveller Adventure and use it as a model for how to present freewheeling campaign-building material. 

Bugs in the System

You'll find that there are a number of science fiction adventures on this list, which should come as no surprise to those who read this blog regularly. Bugs in the System by Graeme Morris is one of two modules published by TSR UK for Star Frontiers. Unlike many of the scenarios published for the game, this one is relatively slow-paced, focusing on scientific and technological investigation rather than combat. The characters are tasked with figuring out what went wrong on an extraction platform in orbit around a gas giant contact with which has recently been lost. Unraveling the mystery requires careful analysis of the facts on the ground as much as the quick thinking one typically associated with RPGs. What elevates Bugs in the System above so many other modules of this sort is that the central mystery is genuinely science fictional in nature and quite different from what could be found in other Star Frontiers modules. I regularly find myself thinking back on this one.

Trouble Brewing

This one is something of a cheat too, in that it's not a single adventure but rather an overview of a campaign setting, along with several different scenarios, each of which highlights part of that setting. That said, Trouble Brewing is absolutely wonderful, both in its utility to the referee running a Gangbusters campaign and in the options it makes available to the players. The scenarios presented here run the range from law enforcement to journalism to independent and syndicate crime. One of the things I still find incredibly attractive about Gangbusters is the evenness with which it treated character options. The rules treat being an investigative reporter as every bit as viable as being a gangster or private eye. Trouble Brewing follows in the same vein, offering up scenarios and situations intended for all types of characters. I got immense use out of this product.

Legion of Gold

I have been known to call Legion of Gold "the Village of Hommlet" of Gamma World, which is high praise considering that Hommlet is my favorite D&D adventure of all time. I mean that comparison most sincerely. Legion of Gold presents a community of relative safety and prosperity – the Barony of Horn – for use as a home base by a band of newly created player characters. Once established there, the characters begin exploring the surrounding countryside, undertaking small missions for local patrons. In the process, they not only make names for themselves but also start to hear rumors of a growing threat, the eponymous Legion of Gold. The Legion seemingly appeared out of nowhere and, armed with mighty weapons of the Ancients, seems bent on conquest not just of the Barony but all the lands near Lake Mitchigoom. There's plenty of material to sustain a Gamma World campaign for months packed into this module's 32 pages. Great stuff.

The Vanished

FASA's Star Trek the Roleplaying Game remains my favorite adaptation of the venerable science fiction series into the medium of roleplaying. During its existence in the early to mid-1980s, FASA published an outstanding number of truly excellent adventures for the game, many of which compare favorably with episodes from the Original Series. A good example of this is 1983's The Vanished. The scenario is similar in some respects to Bugs in the System above, in that the player characters are investigating unexplained events aboard a space station that has resulted in the disappearance of its crew. This is a slow, methodical scenario that rewards keen eyes and clever thought, but it's also immensely rewarding, as the characters uncover the true cause of what's happening and must resolve it according to the principles of Starfleet. I had much fun with this adventure and still consider it one of highlights of FASA's output for the game.

Shadows of Yog-Sothoth

This entry is another cheat in that Shadows of Yog-Sothoth is a campaign for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu rather than a single adventure. On the other hand, Call of Cthulhu tends to be known more for its campaigns than for its individual scenarios, so I feel quite justified in choosing it. More to the point, this is one of the earliest supplementary products published by Chaosium, so its influence and impact cannot be understated. As a neophyte Keeper, I welcomed the release of Shadows of Yog-Sothoth in 1982 and ran it to great success with my players, who enjoyed every bit of it – even the final confrontation with Cthulhu himself. To this day, whenever I think of refereeing Call of Cthulhu, I find myself thinking back to Sandy Petersen's masterpiece. It's exceptionally well done, with lots of variety in its sanity-shattering horrors and the overall structure, while Derlethian in its frame, is quite satisfying.

The Free City of Krakow

Twilight: 2000 is a favorite RPG of mine, one I bought immediately upon its release in 1984 and played with great gusto with my friends at the time. Over the years, I've retained an immense fondness for it, owing in large part to my memories of the days we spent in the then-possible future of the Year 2000. Much of those days were spent in and around the titular Free City of Krakow, a sovereign city-state that conducts itself independently of both the Warsaw Pact and NATO. Within its walls, almost anything is available for the right price, most especially information. This module, like so many others on this list, presents multiple possible scenarios in which the characters might become involved, in addition to plenty of information about Krakow and its inhabitants. The characters in my campaign of yore spent many months in the Free City, in the process becoming involved in local politics and intrigue. I can't say enough good things about this one.

War in Heaven: Hegemony

Because the focus of this blog is old school roleplaying games, I generally don't write much about RPGs published after the mid-1980s, but one of my favorite games is Fading Suns, first published in 1996. Fading Suns is a science fantasy roleplaying game set thousands of years in the future after the fall of the high-tech Second Republic. What follows is a literal dark age, as the stars themselves begin to fade due to some unknown – and possibly supernatural – phenomenon. War in Heaven: Hegemony is the second part of an unfinished trilogy of adventures dealing with the mysteries of the setting, in this case the enigmatic aliens known as the Vau. The scenario involves the player characters being selected as part of a diplomatic mission to Vau space, during which they learn more about these aliens, the culture, and beliefs. It's a little heavy-handed at times, but I am fond of it nonetheless because of the masterful way author Bill Bridges deploys religious beliefs, esoteric thought, and science fictional concepts to create memorable situations with which the characters must contend.

The Boy King

Again, I cheat – I am sensing a pattern here – in that Greg Stafford's The Boy King isn't a single adventure so much as a campaign framework into which the referee can insert any adventure scenarios he likes. In my defense, I can only say that, despite this, the book does include numerous ready-to-play scenarios, not to mention plenty of background information, locations, and NPC descriptions from which to create many, many more. It's a nearly perfect toolbox for any Pendragon referee, giving him everything needed to run a 80-year campaign, spanning the time between the time of Uther to the death of Arthur. Without exaggeration, The Boy King is the only supplement a Pendragon referee will ever require to keep his campaign humming along for many months, if not years. It's a brilliant piece of work and I've gotten so much use out of it over the years that I had to include it on this list.

Interview: Rick Meints (Part II)

Part I of the interview can be found here.

7. How did you become involved with Tales of the Reaching Moon?

On a whim, in January of 1994 I decided to go to RQ Con 1 in Baltimore. I had just read about this convention in Tales 10, but initially hadn't planned on attending. I didn’t know anyone who was attending and I hadn’t played RuneQuest in years. Then, just a few days before the convention I bought a plane ticket and off I went. While there I met Nick Brooke, who was an active contributor to Tales. He offered to show me around London if I was ever in the UK and, as luck would have it, work brought me to London later that year. I contacted Nick, we had dinner, and he started to introduce me to his friends that worked on Tales, including David Hall and Dan Barker. One of the best decisions I ever made, for both my personal and professional life, was to move to the UK in 1995. I was quickly welcomed into a wonderfully creative and energetic circle of friends collectively known as the Reaching Moon Megacorp. It allowed all of us to contribute our talents to a number of projects including Tales of the Reaching Moon, the Convulsion convention, and a number of independent projects such as Tarsh War, the Rough Guide to Glamour, and even my Meints Index to Glorantha. One of the best parts of the group was its social side. Throughout the seven years I lived in the UK we would meet after work at the Round Table pub in London near Leicester Square almost every Wednesday night. Over pints (make mine a Guinness) we would bring along and discuss the latest Gloranthan projects we were working on. I volunteered to do the layout for Tales 14 (part of my day job was writing computer manuals) and kept doing that until Tales 20, which was the magazine's last. A part of me really misses that era. We attended a lot of European conventions together, and I met my wife through this group of friends. Nick, David, and I attended each other's weddings. What's even better is that we're all still friends, and several of the Tales crew are involved with Chaosium now. 

8. What was the path that took you from working for the Reaching Moon Megacorp to your present one as president of Chaosium?

In the late 90s the Reaching Moon Megacorp was losing steam. A number of us were recently married and starting families. Running conventions and publishing Tales felt too much like work and many on the team scaled back their involvement. With each passing issue of Tales I took on more responsibility with getting the magazine printed and shipped. I enjoyed that side of the business. Moon Design Publications was founded in 1999 because the Megacorp didn't want to take on reprinting RuneQuest material. That deal was struck specifically with Greg Stafford. We started spending more and more time doing business with Greg, and we treated him professionally. We paid him on time. We produced quality products. Greg often consulted us on business matters, especially his own business problems. After the Gloranthan Classics reprint project was wrapped up, we then became the licensed publisher for HeroQuest, and Greg largely retired from publishing to focus on his writing and other interests. He saw what we could do as a company. Having been friends with Greg since the mid-90s we often talked about regular life as well. He knew what my day job was like, which was basically being the Managing Director of a small IT company. One day in 2015 Greg and I were chatting on the phone and he semi-joked "I'd love to find someone like you to run Chaosium, but I don't think you'd ever take the job." I surprised him with "actually, maybe I would". After discussing it with my wife I took the leap, and "ran off to join the circus". It's hard to believe that was a little over six years ago. In some ways, I had been auditioning for the job for over 15 years.

9. How long after you took over Chaosium did you conceive of the idea of the RuneQuest Classic project? What was the original impetus of it and what did you learn from it?

I wanted to reprint the RuneQuest 2nd ed. rules back when we did the Glorantha Classics, but the rights were too fragmented. Chaosium owned the copyright on the text, Avalon Hill/Hasbro owned the Trademark, and Greg owned the "Glorantha" part of it. Greg got the RQ trademark back in 2005 and then licensed it to Mongoose until about 2012. We purchased all of Greg's Glorantha IP and the RQ trademark in 2013. It wasn't until Moon Design got a majority interest in Chaosium in 2015 that we had the final piece of the rights needed to reprint the RQ2 rules. Three of the four volumes of the Glorantha Classics were out-of-print by 2015. The first volume had been printed on old film technology in 1999, so it would have to be redone, plus we had mixed in 3rd edition material into other volumes, so we decided to start fresh and just redo each original RQ2 book individually. The Kickstarter helped breathe more interest back into the RuneQuest RPG. It also raised a lot of money for Moon Design, the profits of which we invested in Chaosium, giving it the funds needed to print the 7th edition books. 

10. Did the success of this project show that there was genuine interest in older editions of your RPGs, thereby laying the groundwork for Call of Cthulhu Classic? Might you consider other similar reprints of classic Chaosium games in the future?

The RuneQuest Classics project did show us that reprinting older RQ material can be lucrative and Kickstarter let us know how many to print without having to guess. I've been an RPG collector for about 40 years now and I have watched the trends in the RPG collectables market for both personal and business reasons. I've also been an auctioneer over 30 times at RPG conventions, and one thing I learned is that older material is sought after, and while some will pay collector prices, many more would happily pay for older items if the price was more reasonable. At Chaosium we have our customerservice@chaosium.com email which is our main main avenue for all manner of customer inquiries. One fairly common question we get at least every few days, if not every day, is "do you have any copies of old product X lurking in the warehouse" or "do you have any plans to reprint X because I would love to get a copy". Believe it or not, I actually review all of the customer service emails we get, and the team knows to forward ones like those to me to answer directly. Those emails are a big part of why we got Beyond the Mountains of Madness reprinted. That, and I saw people moan about not wanting to pay $200 to get a used copy of it on eBay. As for more such classic reprints of other Chaosium games, the short answer is yes. We're looking at Pendragon in particular, and a few other older licensed properties. Between print on demand, regular print runs, and such we have more options to keep things available than we used to, and why wouldn't we. Some might be cleaned up scans, like Wyrms Footnotes, while others might be fully OCR'd and have their layout redone. It all depends on how big of a demand we see.

11. Are there any upcoming Chaosium projects that might appeal to fans of the company's older material?

There are a number of products that we have in the works that would appeal to fans of our older material. Jason Durall is heading up the development team that is turning the late '70s Chaosium wargame Lords of the Middle Sea into an RPG. It will expand our BRP game universe into another post-apocalyptic future earth setting. The playtests have been going well and we hope to get it into layout soon. Another couple of titles I need to mention are Gaslight and Dreamlands for Call of Cthulhu 7th edition. Both of those settings are getting the full color treatment and should also be going into final manuscript form soon. Each of those would also feature a boxed Starter set as your entry point into those realms of the Mythos. As for RuneQuest, the Sartar Campaign pack is also being developed. It builds on material originally written for the Sartar pack we were developing back in the early 80s, around the time when Griffin Mountain and Borderlands came out. Lastly, I need to mention we also have other older titles we will be making available again via POD. We want to get titles similar to Beyond the Mountains of Madness available again, even if we can't update them any time soon. As for which titles, we want to not over promise and under deliver. We will release them as and when we can.

12. Finally, a question I like to ask most people I interview: what RPGs are you playing/refereeing these days?

While I play a lot of one-shot pick-up games at cons and similar, I haven't been able to find the time for a regular weekly or bi-weekly campaign. That said, it is awesome that I work for a company where my colleagues tell me that I need to play more games. My last Heroquest campaign from a few months ago was set just before the Dragonrise, during the start of the Hero Wars. In most situations I prefer to play rather than GM. I have great respect for all the GMs that devote the time to prepare sessions for their players. As for me, I'm generally too much of a last minute person who lives by the motto "If it wasn't for the last minute, I'd have no time at all". I am slowly writing a few things that I hope to GM some day. One is an RQ scenario set in the Upland Marsh, and the other is a 1920s scenario set in the Great Lakes region of the US. I want to play more 7th Sea, but I've been spoiled by only having played the game with John Wick as my GM.

Different Worlds: Issue #15

Issue #15 of Different Worlds (October 1981) features a cover by Rick Becker, who had previously done the covers for issues #6 and #10, as well as The Gateway Bestiary. Paul Montgomery Crabaugh's "More Citizens" kicks things off by presenting six new professions for use with GDW's Traveller: cavalry, artillery, technician, engineer, reporter, and civilian, along with three new skills. In my youth, when I was playing Traveller regularly, I used to adore articles like this, so reading this one was a nice blast of nostalgia for me.

"Tournament Role-Playing" by Ken Rolston is a lengthy, 10-page piece that covers a great many topics relating to the refereeing a adventure scenarios at gaming conventions. The topics range from styles of play to the creation of characters to judging players. He provides a lengthy example of a RuneQuest scenario he has designed that nicely demonstrates the principles he puts forward. Of particular interest to me was his assertion that one's "best bet" is "basing your tournament scenarios in the campaign you are currently running." As someone who's long felt that too many game writers aren't even playing the games for which they are writing, I couldn't agree more.

"Calandra and Aurelion" by Charles Huber is a Gloranthan cult for use with RuneQuest. Even though I don't play RQ regularly, I nevertheless enjoy these cult write-ups. Religion is a topic that's near and dear to me; I find its treatment in most fiction (including RPGs) to be laughably simplistic. RuneQuest makes a much better effort to take religion seriously and many of these cult articles demonstrate that quite well. David F. Nalle's "Favorites of the Gods" is another article treating religion, specifically the ability of characters to gain the favor of deities through sacrifices and quests. Nalle's treatment is simple and mechanical in its approach, but I nevertheless appreciate his attempt to grapple with the topic of divine intervention.

"A Modest Proposal for The Fantasy Trip" by David R. Dunham is a short article suggesting the splitting of the game's attribute scores into related pairs to deal with both the over-importance of certain attributes and the "unrealistic" nature of combing, say, one's physical strength and endurance into one score. This is a long-standing complaint about not just TFT but also its descendant GURPS. "Man Bites Dog" is Ken St. Andre's rather peculiar article that's ostensibly about "role-playing in the future." Instead of a prognostication of how the then-new technology of computers might change the face of the hobby, St. Andre instead offers a half-serious, half-parodic account of what roleplaying might be like in a post-apocalyptic world when only the aged remember "the good old days back in the 1980s." 

Lewis Pulsipher's "Making Life Hard for Magic-Users" is another entry in the ancient genre of "cutting magic-users down to size," the belief that magic-users in Dungeons & Dragons are too powerful compared to other character classes. To correct this supposed imbalance, Pulsipher offers numerous possible fixes, such as spell points, spell failure, spell interruption, and more. I appreciate the range of options he suggests, even if I've never been of the opinion that magic-users needed fixing to make them less potent and flexible.

This issue's reviews are lengthy and mostly critical of the products reviewed, starting with SPI's Universe. Actually, the review of Universe is quite measured and fair. The review of Aftermath is similarly fair, but notes that the complexity of the rules militates against wading through its rules to get to the genuinely good material in the game. The poor Fiend Folio gets the most abuse, such as the following passage that mocks the monsters contained therein.

Harsh but not wholly incorrect.

Gigi D'Arn's column is shorter, owing to the fact that it's now monthly, a fact Gigi draws attention to at the start of her piece. Nevertheless, there are a few notable tidbits, such as further rumors about the insolvency of SPI and that Chaosium is working on a King Arthur RPG (though it's rumored that Ken St. Andre is working on it with Greg Stafford). Gigi also says the following, which I found amusing.

Ouch! Equally amusing, I think, is that not everyone who read Different Worlds liked Gigi's column, as this letter to the editor makes clear.

I guess there's no accounting for taste.